Apple updates the Mac Pro

A whopping 511 days after the last Mac Pro update, Apple has finally unveiled the latest Mac Pro, which uses the latest quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors in speeds of up to 3.33 GHz.

“The new Mac Pro is the most powerful and configurable Mac we’ve ever made,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With up to 12 cores, the new Mac Pro outperforms our previous top-of-the-line system by up to 50 percent, and with over a billion possible configurations, our customers can create exactly the system they want.”

The base-level Mac Pro will use the ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card with 1GB of memory, with the faster Radeon HD 5870 available as an option.

A new 512GB SSD option is available to order, and you can fit up to four of them in the machine if your budget is sufficiently astronomical.

The back panel features two Mini DisplayPorts and a dual-link DVI port, which means you can use two LED Cinema Displays without purchasing a second graphics card.

The new quad-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

Tim originally came to Gizmag as a developer, much to the dismay of anyone who had to maintain, build on, or rewrite his code. After wearing every other hat that didn't have a head for it, he became CEO in 2010. Outside Gizmag, he trains Muay Thai and plays too much Destiny. All articles by Tim HanlonFollow @timhnln

I was never a huge fan of "The Mac" and the "Mac Fan Bois" - for two reasons:

1. At an authorised Apple Mac store, I happened to inquire about a 1 TB external drive. The asking price was $750.

Now without knowing the make of the actual HDD, the going rate at that time for a 1TB drive was around $160, and external drive case was around $45.

When the girl said, "Would you like to pay in cash or credit card?" - I stared blankly at her and asked, what accounts for the $500 difference between the two?

Which was a clever way of saying, "Surely you jest?"

2. The other reason I would not buy a Mac is that all the Mac Fan Bois are wankers.

Mr Stiffy 27th July, 2010 @ 09:32 pm PDT

Ten years I learnt to build beowulf clusters such that I could I run large genetic algorithms (GA) problems. It was such a hassle to set setup although the good thing was switching to linux. When apple switched from the OS Copeland to OS X, I saw a potential of clustering macs but that was always too expensive!

Since I have switched to MATLAB for all my GA work and given that MATLAB now allows multiprocessing on multicore processors, I am looking forward to the 12 core mac pro.

Finally such processing power is within reach for less funded scientists like myself. Well done Apple and I hope MathWorks Inc will soon release an update of MATLAB that will take advantage of 12 cores ... I think at the moment it only supports up to 8 cores.

I also remember that 10 years ago in our department we had a Krell 16 processor supercomputer that was worth AUD 1.5 million ... how things have changed!

Chiko 28th July, 2010 @ 02:08 pm PDT

Great upgrades for pros who have had to wait for Apple to get around to this!

Oh, and thank you 'mrstiffy' for proving that ignorance trumps common sense every time.

How about posting some comments about the latest BMWs and how you'll never buy one because they're too expensive and people who drive them are wankers too?

Do you make all your buying decisions based on your twisted views of others?!